Entitled neighbor steals man's Wi-Fi — he uses clever trick to send a 'cop-like' message to her

We often notice our Wi-Fi services breaking down or becoming sluggish to the point where they become useless. Various technical reasons could be behind the internet failure, but what if it is your neighbor’s secret incursion into your private network? Though it sounds weird, the same happened to a man when wireless technology was in its early stages. At that time, it was easier to access someone else’s connection. The new tenant to a residential complex—who goes by u/Illuminatus-Prime on Reddit—decided to teach his entitled neighbor a life lesson after finding that the latter was uploading her X-rated videos using his Wi-Fi.

In the post, the man explained how moving into an apartment while his home was under renovation was not easy. Right after move-in, he installed Wi-Fi. “This was around the time Wi-Fi first came out, so I was a bit naïve about setting it up, and I let the installers do all the work,” he added. However, after a few months, his newly installed Wi-Fi slowed down. “Several calls and a single service visit later, I found out that at least one of my neighbors had tapped into my Wi-Fi,” he remarked.

Thereafter, he set up a new username and password to make his wireless connection more secure. He deployed a playful tactic by renaming it after a number identified with cops, essentially sending a message to his neighbor. “I changed the name of my router to BADGE357 and changed the password to a randomized character string of maximum length.” Days after making these changes, the man noticed his Wi-Fi speed had returned to its initial levels. “My net speed went back to normal, and my ping time came back down to the low to mid-double-digit range,” he explained.

One fine day, during a visit to the rental office, he came across the neighbor, who was “a cute twenty-something brunette.” She started complaining about how the cops had “shut down” her internet connection. “When I asked why they would shut her down, she said she was running an adult webcam service—completely legal, but somewhat explicit.” The man had no concerns about how someone made money as long as they did not “steal” from him in the process. He wrote, “I told her that my service was just fine, so she started the whole bat-the-eyes and wiggle-the-tush routine and suggested in a real sweet voice that I could allow her to tap into my service.”

Little did she know that it was not any cop but him who changed the Wi-Fi’s name. While agreeing to her request, the man responded, “My router is BADGE357, and my password is...” It led to a fallout between the two, with the neighbor blaming him for disturbing her business. “You ruined my business! I have clients depending on me,” the neighbor said. It brought a smile to the man’s face as he was satisfied with teaching her a lesson. He claimed to have picked up the receipt for his rent payment and walked away. The Reddit community found their story somewhat relatable. “I used to log into my neighbor’s Wi-Fi and update their firmware for them. At the time, the provider used the same default password for every install,” u/Dogmom_3 recalled. “You really had her going thinking you were going to give her free Wi-Fi,” u/Macmully2 wrote.